


The kid from the Narrows

by littlerhymes



Category: Batman Begins
Genre: Gen, Origin Story, POV Minor Character, POV Second Person, Yuletide 2007, character reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:22:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kid from Batman Begins. (Not compliant with The Dark Knight.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The kid from the Narrows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadeddiva](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jadeddiva).



> Many thanks to SQ for the beta read and support!

You're ten years old when you see Batman for the first time. He's clinging to a wall in the rain, a shadow dripping mystery and danger. Inside the apartment Mom and Dad are screaming at one another but you could hardly care less.

"It's you, isn't it?" you say eagerly. "Everyone's been talking about you."

He doesn't answer, though the eyes behind the mask seem to glint at you in tough-guy conspiracy before he reaches up with one gloved hand and begins to climb again.

You sigh. The most exciting moment of your short life so far, and it's already slipping away. "The other kids won't believe me," you say, not expecting him to answer. You're used to being overlooked, the shadow in the house, the kid at the back of the classroom. 

But then he looks at you, really sees you, and he throws something to you with a single quick flick of the wrist you'll try to imitate for days and months to come.

Your hands come up instinctively and close on what appears to be a night scope or goggles, the side embossed with his winged logo. You feel your mouth opening up in a disbelieving wow. When you look up to say thanks he's already gone. You stare up into the night, the rain coming down like tears into your eyes, your mouth, until Dad finally loses all patience and hauls in you inside by the scruff of your neck.

A few days later, the world goes mad. 

You don't remember much from that night. Just the panic you felt after losing Mom in the crowd, the sneers of the police. The scent of a pretty lady's perfume and the tremble in her voice when she told you it was gonna be okay. And then there were the monsters, screaming, terror, darkness...

Afterwards, the lady takes you home. She says Batman saved both your lives. Did he? You can't remember it, but it seems like the sort of thing he would do so you nod numbly and watch the tail lights of her car fade away in the mist and dank of the Narrows. You don't even know her name.

With heavy steps you climb the creaking stairs to the apartment where Mom and Dad are fighting, throwing plates and accusations. It's like nothing ever happened, like all the madness and miracles of the night before were just stories. You slip inside and under their notice, to tumble into bed. 

You're too old for teddybears but you cling to something nonetheless. Propped up on your pillow, you lean out the window to scan the alleyways below and rooftops above with Batman's night scope, the Narrows lit up in green and black and still-fresh nightmares. You fall asleep clutching the metal casing and wake with his symbol pressed deep into your palm.

*

One day Mom disappears, along with all her clothes and photo albums and next week's rent money too. 

All that's left are the strands of fair hair that linger on her pillow and the wedding ring discarded on the kitchen table. "She's gone, and that's all there is to it," Dad says stonily, and his fingers close around the ring, nails digging deep.

For the longest time, you refuse to believe that it's true. Why would she have left you without even saying goodbye?

It must have been a kidnapping, you decide. It must have been one of the crazies from the Asylum. They're still running around the Narrows, everyone knows it. It's the only explanation.

So every day you read the newspaper from front to back, looking for just one clue. _Twenty-nine year old woman with amnesia taken to hospital_ , or something like that. You cut out any stories that look like they might be useful and store them in a shoebox underneath your bed. Along with the night scope, it's your best and most precious secret.

That is, until the afternoon you come home to find Dad rooting through your room. He stinks of whiskey and cigarettes, and the piggy bank smashed open on the floor means he'll soon be going out for more. "Dad!" you shout, furious, just as he reaches under your bed. "That's mine!"

Dad pays you no mind, rifling through the shoebox with clumsy fingers. When he realises there's no cash, just clippings, he swears at you and throws the box out the window. You push past him and rush to the sill, but it's too late. The wind has already snatched up the scraps of paper and blown them far, far away, and as soon as Dad slams the door behind him you bawl your eyes out.

You're not just crying for yourself, not really. It's just. This is the first time you admit to yourself that she's not coming back.

"She left you a note," your dad finally admits many months later in a drunken confession, "but I burnt it." 

*

You wake up way past midnight. There's a light on in the kitchen and you can hear water running in the bathroom. Guess Dad made it home before morning for once. You stir, and yawn, and stretch, and slowly roll yourself out of bed. The carpet is rough beneath your bare feet as you pad down the darkened hallway. "Dad," you say, pushing at the bathroom door. "Dad?"

The door creaks open and Dad glances up at you with cold eyes. He's in boxers and wifebeater, a pair of scarlet-spattered overalls discarded on the floor. A gun rests on the benchtop next to your toothbrush.

"Go back to your room," Dad says finally, in his grimmest voice.

The next day both of you are quiet over the kitchen table. On the tv, the newsreader starts talking about the Joker gang's latest robbery - _Three people are dead after a heavily armed and disguised group broke into Gotham City Bank last night_  - until Dad changes the channel.

"You trust me, don't you son?" Dad says suddenly. He grips the top of your arm and you're reminded of how strong his big hands can be. "I can trust you, can't I?"

"Course you can." You twist out of his grip and pour some more milk over your tasteless cereal. You both eat the rest of your breakfast in silence.

From that day onwards, things begin to change. Dad starts working again, though he won't tell you what he does that takes him away for days and nights at a time and brings him back whistling, with a wallet stuffed with cash.  He still drinks and yells too much, but there's a certain purposefulness about him now that's not quite as bad as the months of apathy that preceded it.

Before Batman existed, Dad used to work for Mr Falcone. Mostly he drove trucks, but sometimes there was other work, secret work, that would take him away for days at a time. Back then he used to come home with that same look, the same satisfied grin like there was some joke he knew that no one else did.

"Are you working for Mr Falcone again?" you finally ask one night when you're eating pizza in front of the television. 

"Falcone? He's still in the loony bin." Dad laughs and swigs from a can of beer. "But you're close. Guess again." 

You're not stupid. You work it out. The cops showing up on your doorstep is probably the clincher.

*

The detective's name is Gordon - "but you can call me Jim." He glances over at you from time to time as he drives, like he's gonna say something. You stare out the window at the changing scenery, the familiar streets of the Narrows giving way to Gotham's broad thoroughfares and skyscrapers, and pretend not to notice. 

"You okay, kid?" he says at last as he pulls up at the courthouse.

"Sure," you say in the voice you save for teachers and community workers. "Why wouldn't I be?"

The courts were packed out for the Joker's trial, but no one's that interested in Dad. To the police and reporters he's just another one of the Joker's many henchmen so the courtroom seats are mostly empty. Up in the dock, Dad looks tired and pale. His hands are cuffed and he doesn't wave when he sees you.

School's out so you come to court every day. Usually you just sit up the back, reading the comics Jim borrows from his son for you. Dad pleads guilty to all charges, and the trial goes by fast.

The chief prosecutor is a dark-haired woman, younger and prettier than the other lawyers. You know her face but she doesn't seem to recognise you. It's not until the trial's nearly over that she finally looks at you twice. 

Court is finished for the day and you're outside waiting for Jim to drive you back to the foster home when she sits down beside you. "Hello," she says, and puts her briefcase down on the ground very carefully, as though she thinks you'll startle and run. "Do you remember me? I'm Rachel. We met that night in the Narrows." Her eyes flick over your face anxiously for a sign of recognition.

You put down the comic book. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

"I'm so sorry about your father's situation." Rachel reaches out to lay her hand over yours, but you pull back before she can touch you.

"I don't care," you say flatly and watch her face fall.

A shadow falls over you both and a smooth, amused voice says, "Hello, Rachel." You look up, and then further up still, past the double-breasted suit to the firm chin, perfect teeth, gelled hair.

"Bruce." Rachel tucks a stray hank of hair behind her ear before folding her hands together, fingers fiddling nervously. "I didn't think you could make it today."

"You know how it is, the life of the idle rich." Bruce sits down on your other side. He looks at you quizzically, like he's trying to remember your name. "Hey there, buddy. Have we met before?"

"No." You pick up the comic book and stand, seeing Jim's cop car has just pulled up at the courthouse steps. "I gotta go."

You glance backwards when you get to the bottom of the steps. They're still talking, the looks on their faces so intent you get the feeling they've already forgotten you. That's okay. The likes of them never have much time for a kid from the Narrows anyway.

*

Once a month you're allowed to take the ferry across Gotham Bay to Blackgate Penitentiary. The decks are always crowded with jailbird kids and crime widows, cut-rate lawyers and wizened old men with smoker's coughs.

"How's school?" Dad will say, his voice crackling through the prison phone. "How's the orphanage?"

"Good," you say. "Fine." He doesn't need to hear about the suspensions, the fights. You keep your voice even and lie like a pro.

It's been four years since Dad went to prison. Only sixteen to go. On the ferry back to Gotham, you stand at the rail with your hands shoved deep into your pockets, pretending you're not one of those kids that cry. 

Back in the city, you hang out with the other boys, shoplift cigarettes and chewing gum, lob bricks through warehouse windows. Then when night falls you slouch back to the orphanage by the longest possible route, not caring that you'll break curfew. After all, what's the worst they can do? Hit you? You can take it.

The grim-faced matron is waiting by the front door when you finally arrive, keys swinging from her hand. You scowl and let your hair fall over your eyes, trying to shoulder past her without making physical contact. You're so used to tuning out her voice that she has to say it twice before you actually hear it.

"... called an hour ago. Your father's dead. Do you hear me? Your father. He's gone." 

Some pointless brawl that ends with a shank in the ribs. No one knows why and no one really cares, except for you. They cremate Dad's body and send you the ashes in a prison-issue urn.

The funeral is just you and a priest and a plot. The wind takes the preacher's prayer and snatches it away from his mouth before you can hear anything but a few mumbled words and the name of god.

Long after the priest has shuffled away, you're still there. You have enough for the bus fare home, but the coins grow warm in your hand and the sun low in the sky before you make a move. You read the stone over and over, Dad's whole life shrunk down to a name and dates.

You think about the lies you told, about how well you were doing at school and that you were on the baseball team and about how the orphanage was fine, really. And before that, how you used to wait up late for the sound of his key turning in the lock and then pretend sleep when he cracked open your bedroom door. Then the dimmest memories of all, from back when Mom was still around and Dad knew how to laugh and mean it, before it all went wrong.

You weigh up the coins in your hand and then put them back in your pocket. You'll go back to the orphanage for tonight, sure, but you already know that it's gonna be the last time. There's nothing to hold you there now. It's time to go home.

*

A week of living on the streets and you've already seen a kid get beat up for the shoes on his feet, a hooker stabbing a pimp, an old man leap into the bay and drown while the passersby keep on walking.

Yeah, the Narrows haven't changed a bit.

You're tall for your age, skinny but strong. You tell people you're eighteen and back it up with a stare, daring them to call you a liar. They rarely do. So you front up to the wharf, construction sites, rundown bars, and take your turn with the other kids asking for a day's work stacking crates or sweeping sawdust or washing glasses.

When there's no work to be found, which is almost always, you learn to take what you need instead. You lower your eyes and become a shadow and a quick pair of hands, sliding unseen between Gotham's lawyers and suits and idle.

Outside of the Narrows, you've always been invisible. For the first time you turn it to your advantage.

Afterwards you flick through their wallets and purses. The faded family photographs folded alongside business cards and concert tickets seem as distant from you as the faces of aliens or animals. You're not like them and maybe never were. You take the cash and credit cards and dump the rest, heading back to the Narrows where you belong.

You sleep away the summer nights in warehouses or the park, and most often of all on rooftops. Folding your arms beneath your head, you watch the ever-shifting clouds and glimpses of stars. Every now and then you'll see the sign, the Batman called out from some hidden lair.

Day after day you keep your eyes open for a glimpse of the black cape, the masked face, but months pass and all you see are the villains, the victims, the ones waiting to be saved.

*

The fence turns your goods over with a chewed-up pen, grunting occasionally at one piece or another. 

It's been a bad week and you carry the constant rumble of hunger in your belly like the pack slung over your shoulder. As summer wore into fall the jobs trickled up and you turn more and more to thieving. 

Yesterday, the first snow fell.

Both you and the fence know how this is gonna end. He's already checked out your threadbare clothes and unwashed hair, and figured you'll take any price he offers for your pitiful haul of cell phones and counterfeit watches. "Anything else?" he says, yawning. 

You pull out the last item from your bag and place it on the counter. You refuse to think about what you're doing, what you're admitting by giving this up.

"What's this?" The fence squints through the viewfinder. "Night vision scope. Not bad. Military issue?" Then he checks the side, and you watch the expression on his face change when he sees the curved wings of Batman's sign.

"I want three hundred," you say boldly, heart thumping in your chest. When the fence agrees straight away you realise you've sold yourself short. You look down at the scope for the last time. Maybe in more ways than one.

A couple of weeks later, you see the car hidden down an alleyway. You recognise it straight away.

The matte black bonnet is still warm to the touch, the early snowfall resting on its surface only a moment before dissolving. You trail your hand along the car's battered sides, trying to work out how to break inside and dismissing the thought just as quickly. Probably be easier to crack a cannonball with your teeth. The hubcaps, on the other hand...

The fence said, _There's always some nutjob who'll buy this stuff, trying to reverse engineer it or figure out his identity or some bullshit like that. Rich guys with too much time on their hands._

You've just unscrewed one hubcap and stuffed it into your backpack when the voice rasps out from behind you: "That's enough, kid."

A chill runs right up the length of your skinny spine. You turn and scramble to your feet. He's not as tall as you remember, but the black solid bulk of him is enough to block out the light from the street. The Batman looks at you coolly through the mask as though he expects you to fall to the ground in terror.

You don't back down. Your blood's pumping and he takes a half-step back when you bare your teeth and start to run.

One punch. That's all you get before he grabs your fist and twists, pinning your arm behind your back and slamming you up against the side of the car. "Take it easy," he says roughly. "I don't want to hurt you." 

"Let me go!" You struggle against his grip and get nothing for your trouble.

"Why were you doing it?" he says coldly, and his grip around your wrist loosens just a fraction. "Drugs? A dare? It's not worth it, kid, whatever it is."

"Fuck you," you snarl, and you wrench yourself away to run for the nearest fire escape, the rungs freezing in your bare hands as you clamber upwards to the first storey. You climb frantically, expecting his black-clad hand to close around your ankle at any moment. 

Yet when you reach the roof and look back you see that for whatever reason he's chosen not to follow. You don't question your good fortune. You just run.

*

But it nags at you. After all, this is Batman. He doesn't just _give up_. You can't help thinking he let you go because he's saving you up for something particularly nasty.

Soon you're looking around every corner, checking doorways. Since the snows started you've been squatting in a warehouse with a few other kids and though they all whistled the first time they heard your story, your paranoia quickly catches and they're all swearing up and down they wouldn't want to be in your shoes for a million bucks, hell no.

The next time you visit the fence with your usual haul, he says, "Someone was asking about you the other day."

"Huh?" Your senses immediately on the alert. "You mean a cop?"

"Nah." The fence scratches the back of his neck with a pen. "Just some old British guy, asking about the hubcap. The night scope too. Probably another collector."

Which doesn't help you one bit, since for all you know Batman _is_ old and British beneath the disguise. You doubt it, but that doesn't stop you wondering anyway.  
"Thanks," you say shortly, and shove your hands inside your coat, trying to look like you're not worried, not you.

After a few weeks jumping at your own shadow it's almost a relief when he finally does turn up.

Still manages to scare the ever-living shit out of you though.

You're leaving the squat by the fire escape, concentrating so hard on hitting the rungs right in the darkness that you don't even see him till you've clambered down to the ground and turned to find him right in your face.

"Fuck," you blurt, and back up into the wall. Your eyes dart from side to side, scoping the midnight empty streets and finding only snow and fences. No escape. "I needed the money," you hear yourself say like every bad cliche, "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Look at me," he grates, and you drag your reluctant gaze back to his masked face, his glinting eyes. "I'm not here to hurt you, kid. I've been watching you. You're not bad."

"No shit?" You shuffle sideways and come up against another wall. In the cold your breath comes out white and as surely visible as the thrill-laughter-panic rising up in your chest. You don't even know what that means. Not bad at stealing? Or not bad, but not good either?

The mouth beneath the mask is a cold hard line. He doesn't seem to find any of this funny at all. "This is the offer," he says flatly. "You work for me. Steal when I tell you to steal. Watch who I want you to watch. Be my eyes in the Narrows."

You actually do laugh this time. He's got to be kidding. "Oh yeah? And what's in it for me?"  

Your standard flip reply. This is what you know. Wait for the catch, hold out for the highest offer, always expect the worst. And if it gets too hard, if it all looks like it's going to hell, cut and run.

You expect him to reply in kind, something like _not going to juvie_ , or _me not kicking your ass_ , or at best an offer of cold hard cash to which, frankly, you wouldn't say no. Yeah, the short of it is you expect him to act like every other person you've ever known.

But what he says is: "I could find out who killed your father." And before you've had a chance to even exhale, he says: "And what happened to your mother."

You slump back against the wall. Questions snarl and knot inside your throat. _What makes you think I still care?_ and _how could you possibly know?_ and _why the hell are you doing this?_ And when your mouth opens up all that comes out is silence.

"I remember you," he says after a moment. "I remember this," and he holds out the night scope you once took from his hand, when you were young and believed in better things. "Take it. It's yours to keep. It always was."

You take it without a word.

"And this too." He flicks you a cell phone, the disposable kind, which you catch one-handed. "The choice is yours, Jason. Let me know when you're ready." 

The Batman leaves you there, your hands full, your mouth empty. He leaves you. But he doesn't disappear, he doesn't fly or run or turn invisible. He just walks away, boots crunching over snow and gravel, a figure fading into the dark.  

You look down at his footprints. You realise you could follow.  
   
 

  



End file.
